WIG-Trouble: Awkwardness and Feminist Politics

This collaborative essay addresses feminist politics in contemporary German culture and in German studies. In both spheres we identify a troubling circularity that is not to be seen as failure but instead as a starting point for feminist academics working to create politically engaged scholarship for the twenty-first century. Here, we propose such a starting point to be found in the concept of “awkwardness” and offer a model that replicates in form and content much of the messy trouble seen in feminist politics today. The essay is written in a manner to demarcate our voices, including the places where they intersect; Carrie’s writing is italicized, whereas Maria’s writing is not. By so doing, we wish to highlight our collaboration as part of the sticky, circular, messy, and jarring process that is feminist political work today.